What Really Matters
by Encendrel
Summary: Shintaro only wants to live a peaceful, logical life. But when his family decides it would be a great idea to adopt three strange, red-eyed children, he realizes, he really just can't catch a break, can he?
1. The Slippery Slope

**Hello, I'm Encendrel.**

**I'm not exactly new to this fandom (unless you consider one year ago new) but this is the first time I've ever posted something for it.**

**The premise is simple. Shintaro & Momo's mother decides to adopt Kano, Kido, and Seto, instead of Kenjirou.**

**No explanations. Only a story. The reason behind the action is unknown.  
**

**Also, at the beginning, Shintaro is 10, Kido, Kano, Seto, and Momo are all 8 (since it doesn't specify when Kenjirou adopted them). Some of the observations are assumption based, since the timeline is somewhat foggy to me.**

**That said, here we go.**

**Kagerou Days belongs to Jin (Shizen no Teki-P) and I do not claim ownership of the franchise.**

* * *

Shintaro sat and stared.

_What the heck is this?_ He was thinking this as he looked at three children. All of the children seemed to be in lament, or that was how Shintaro observed it.

The first one was a green haired girl. She seemed to shy away from the rest of the group, so Shintaro moved on.

The second was a blonde boy. Despite the evident sadness on his face, he still had a mischievous glint in his eye. He turned to the last kid.

He was a black haired boy. He seemed to step forward and look at Shintaro bravely, though he was still shaking a little.

The most striking feature of all three of them was that they all had red eyes. Shintaro couldn't bring himself to care, really, but it still managed to stand out.

"...Well, what are your names?" Already, he felt like banging his head on a wall. Everything about this situation was downright idiotic, from his communication ability to the fact that these kids were actually here.

"U-um, my name is Seto!" Somewhat unsurprisingly, the last kid- and Shintaro deemed them all kids, even if they were only slightly younger than him- stepped up to talk first. "Kousuke Seto!" The boy said it so proudly that Shintaro honestly wanted to laugh. Shintaro turned to the next kid, the blonde one, and simply tired to stare an answer out of him.

"...Ah? My name is Elvis Presley."

Shintaro stared.

"_Okaaaaay_, Elvis Presley, what's your real name?"

"Mearry-san."

"Oh? Will I die if you stalk me all day long?

"..."

"..."

"Okay, fine, it's Shuuya Kano."

He sighed.

"And you?" He once again agonized over his poor communication skills, but decided that it would be over soon.

"...ido..." The girl spoke meekly.

"Speak louder." Shintaro decided that he was going crazy. If he had to deal with people like this every day, he had to be less rational than he currently was.

That was going to be a hard task.

"Tsubomi... Kido." After maybe two minutes of mouthing words, she finally got out her name.

"This is your big brother, Shintaro. Shintaro, take care of your siblings, please." His mother stood behind the three kids, trying to reassure them that the resident genius was safe to approach.

Shintaro was about to give a biting remark- probably something about how _this was too many people_, something or other. However, he found his head inevitably turning itself to face a door in the house. He tried to fight it, but it had occurred often, so he resigned to having his attention drawn to the door.

A black haired girl kicked the door open, and the doorknob hit the wall next to the room with a thud. Shintaro cringed a little at the sound, but just kept looking in that direction. The girl (currently) had red eyes, and was, for some reason, still in her pajamas. She walked forward and yawned loudly. She blinked a few times, and her eyes turned orange.

However, it really wasn't anything new to the genius and his mom.

"Momo, how many times have a told you to open the door with your hands?" His mother chided the black haired girl, who looked forward blankly.

"Eh? Who are these kids?" Blatantly ignoring his mom, she turned to Shintaro. "Onii-chan, who are these?"

Shintaro gave the softest, yet most withering sigh he could. "These, Momo, are our new siblings."

"...Eh?"

* * *

**...Here's to the shortest and most poorly done prologue I've ever written!**

**It represents years of wasted potential CX**

**Trust me, all my first chapters are short. They never go above 3,000 words.**

**Afterwards, all chapters should have al least 2,000 words.**

**Mearry-San is a reference to a Japanese urban legend.**

**Prepare for massive amounts of random time-warping/skipping!**

**Encendrel.**

**Also, happy Lunar New Year.**


	2. A lesson in Ignorance

**I'm back, this is the first one that has a basis in a song.**

**The theme of the song won't be the same, though it has some basis on Ayano's Happiness Theory, cause I'm bored.**

**i really just want this to end in crack pairings, but my desire to see myself write a thought-out plot overtakes me.**

**Actually, all my favorite pairings are Shintaro pairings. (ShinAya, KanoShin, even KidoShin if someone wrote that. Actually, KidoShin is something I really want to see. Actually, I like anyone paired with Shintaro except Momo, Hibiya, and the adults.)**

**I do not own the Kagerou Project or anything it owns.**

* * *

And so, they went to eat fast food.

Shintaro's mother was always rather lenient about things happening outside of the household, so all the group got was 2536 yen (25 dollars) and a casual note not to get hit by a truck.

_Of course, that isn't very likely in the first place._

Well, that was what Shintaro wanted to think, but one could never tell with these things. Maybe next, he'll get an invitation to Sochi as an Olympic figure skater.

So, the five of them found themselves at a common restaurant. Shintaro walked up to the line to order, and the four younger siblings found a table to sit at.

"So, what're your names?" Momo asked cheerfully. She was thinking in more of a "the more, the merrier" sense. She absently kicked her legs back and forth under the table. Shintaro, in the background, ordered four kid's meals and a jumbo parfait.

"Aww, again?" The blonde boy who Shintaro now knew as Kano Shuuya mock pouted.

"Hey, hey, don't say it like it's such a pain." Momo kicked Kano's foot lightly.

"Oh, well, I'm Kano. I suppose I'm supposed to be your brother now." Kano was probably going to go off into unrelated topics but Kido, who was sitting next to Momo, tapped her shoulder.

"Wh-Wha!" Even though Kido had gone in with everyone else, she had been completely unnoticed by everyone, except maybe Shintaro. "Oh, it's just you. What is it?"

"Um... Momo-san, was it..."

"Yes?"

"Um, why are there so many people here?" Momo took that moment to look around. Lots of people had gathered around their table, making conversations amongst themselves. None of them seemed to notice that they had slowly shifted towards the table. Kido seemed to be cringing a little, as if a little scared. Momo seemed a little panicked, but it looked like a normal occurrence to her.

Shintaro finally got his orders and passed the kid's meals around, and gave the gigantic parfait to Momo. He took one look at the crowd, before turning back and seating himself next to Kido. Kido shrunk behind Shintaro, but the very large parfait seemed to catch everyone's attention- that is, except for Shintaro. Shintaro was smart and knew that eating unhealthy foods would be bad in the en-hahahaha.

"...What? Why are you looking at my parfait like that?"

"Shintaro-san, why does Momo get a parfait?" Seto asked in a very straightforward manner. He said Shintaro's name in a very formal manner, so it seemed obvious he wasn't trusted.

That didn't mean anything to him, though. So, he turned and grinned. "You see, Momo wants to be a cow when she grows up. So, we always- OW!" A fist quickly acquainted itself with Shintaro's forehead. In a way that screamed a soon occurring tsukkomi, Shintaro comically fell to the floor. A rage-tick mark appeared near Momo.

"You shouldn't say such things to a lady. It's rude."

"Lady?"

Shintaro gets punched again. He stands up. They leave.

Momo's pride gets insulted again.

Momo flips a table.

* * *

"So, what do you guys want to do?" Shintaro carelessly tossed back a question as the quintet walked aimlessly though the city.

There was a general silence for a while, but slowly, Seto answered, "...Is there anything we can do?"

"Eh? What do you mean?"

"We have these red eyes; so everyone hates us..." Kano added in.

"Really? Momo has red eyes, and she does anything but get hated... Even though she would deserve it so much."

Quickly dodging a swift punch from Momo, he turned back to look at them.

"Besides, even so, couldn't you just hide your eyes instead?"

* * *

Silence.

It didn't bother anyone, but they were sort of wandering the city, doing nothing, so Momo suddenly spoke up.

"Why don't we go to the amusement park?"

Blank stares.

Suddenly getting excited, she spoke quicker and quicker. "Come on guys, it'll definitely be fun! We can ride on all the rollercoasters and play all the games!"

Before anyone could object, she had dashed off.

* * *

"Huh. Come to think of it, how did they let us in without paying or having adults?" Shintaro sat down at a nearby table.

Unbeknownst to him, a girl's eyes stopped flashing red at that moment.

The amusement park they were at was at the top of a large, shopping-center type of building. The entire building was apparently going to go into renovations by the beginning of winter, and with that, the park.

"Ah? Well, never mind that, where should we go first?

Seto spoke up. "Let's go on the roller coaster!"

Kano and Seto started to grin when they heard this.

However, an audible gulp could be heard.

"A-ah? I, um, I better sit this one out..." He was sweating bullets at that point. Turning away coolly, he said, "I'm not so good with thrill rides..."

He was grabbed at the shoulder by two people.

"Oh, come on, onii-chan, I'm sure once you're strapped in the chair, you'll have fun!"

Kano's grin turned even wider. "Oh, scared, _onii-chan_?"

Well, that's it. He was screwed.

* * *

_Ahh... Look at that smooth, looping track..._ Screams could be heard from all around, elation, terror, and everything in between.

_And that speeding, miserable... **death coffin**._

_Ahh... that's right... It's all Momo's fault._

He sat in the middle with Kido, Kano and Momo in the front, and Seto in the back with some random black-haired girl.

He stared forward as if he was watching a murder happen.

"Hey, is everyone alright?" Kano called back lightly.

Kido was shaking, but kept her mouth shut.

"I-I'm fine?" Shintaro trembled. "As if..."

"Onii-chan's fine, don't worry about him!"

"It's all good, let's go."

A resounding click could be heard as the ride began to rise up.

Shintaro looked to his right and saw Kido shaking as if she had gotten a pop-up from _the Red Room_.

Even if he had motion sickness, he also had a heart. He reached his right hand over to cover Kido's left. He gripped the bar with his left had even tighter now.

"Hey, I'm sure it'll be alright, so calm down..." Shintaro stopped. He was really bad at this, wasn't he? "I'll hold your hand if you need, okay?"

Kido turned her head away, a little. "Th-thanks..."

They started to go up the track.

_Agh! Even if I said it would be alright, it really isn't going to be!_

_"S.. Stop stop stop..."_

Alas, his words were only in his head, and they had reached the highest point of the ride.

It only made it worse that the amusement park was at the top of a massive building.

They started to descend.

They all screamed.

Shintaro's soul left his body.

* * *

"G-gah... Even if it isn't scary, I have motion sickness..." Shintaro started.

"E-EH! Why didn't you tell us?" Momo shouted, realizing her mistake.

"I... I was trying to..." He was going to throw up then and there, but he was a genius, and geniuses _do not _throw up in the middle of the road. "I'll meet up with you guys soon!"

"Oh, alright... Hey, guys, the pictures came out!"

Kano and Momo were at the front, screaming for the fun of it, and Seto and the girl in the back were less excited, but still happy. In the middle row...

Shintaro had a mostly straight face (with completely blank eyes), where Kido was screaming with tears almost coming out of her eyes. But what was surprising was...

They were still holding hands.

* * *

At the end of the day, silly shenanigans all over, they walked back to their home. The streetlights were starting to glow a dull orange, signaling the beginning of dusk.

"Oh boy... I'm so tired." Momo stretched out, black hair swaying with the breeze.

"But... That's your fault, anyways."

"Shut up, Onii-chan. I can't help it." She paused. "Besides, didn't you have fun?"

"Huh... Yeah, I did.

* * *

OMAKE

"I DIDN'T MEAN IT LIKE THIS!" They were at a pedestrian crossing, half the cars crashed in the middle of the street. Seto walked around with his eyes closed, as if sleepwalking.

Seto kicked a baby, and moved on.

"STOP! GET BACK HERE!"

* * *

**That was surprisingly easy to write.**

**The most of my ideas were in this story, so this the one I chose to write at the moment.**

**Even if I can't have my KidoShin, I'm still going to ship them a little XD.**

**it's going to be HiyoriXKano and SetoXAyano and KonohaXMomo and MaryXShintaro cause that's how I roll.**

**Umm, disregard that entire sentence.**

**I have this strange idea that Shintaro is actually the greatest master home-maker in the world, I don't know why.**


	3. Anything that's Ordinary

**Chapter 3, time skip after this chapter.**

**This is because I've gotten through most of the angsty stuff fairly quickly. Character development will start happening eventually. Also, while some remains, when it pops up, I'll deal with it.**

**I don't own the Kagerou Project.**

* * *

And so, rooms were decided.

Kano and Seto were in the extra room that appeared out of nowhere; sounds of minor scuffles and horseplay could be heard all the time around the door. Strangely, Seto would always walk out with bruises and scrapes, while Kano still looked perfectly fine.

Kano would claim that he was the "new Aizen" and for a half second, Shintaro could see a white butterfly-man standing behind him.

He still didn't believe a word the liar said.

Kano's aptitude for references was surprisingly good, though.

Momo and Kido both stayed in Momo's room, though Shintaro would swear only Momo was in the room. Maybe it was just because Momo had always attracted attention, but he secretly worried if Kido was lying in a ditch somewhere, victim to the monster known as his sister.

As for Shintaro, he had a room and bed all to himself, though he stayed up waaay past his bed time, doing who knows what on the computer.

At the very least, though, he wasn't a pervert (yet) and it was most likely that he was just playing shooting games online. Though, speaking of shooting games...

"HAH! I WIN!" Shintaro crowed loudly and shoved his contmmmmcbccccroller in front of Kido's face, to which she scowled a little. In the living room, on the large TV, the words "YOU WIN" flashed on the left side of the screen.

"Tch, just wait till next time..." was muttered quietly under Kido's breath.

After Shintaro had stopped dancing around the room like a lunatic, he collapsed on the couch.

Shintaro rolled on his side and asked, "Ah, where's Seto?"

"Hmm... I think he left the house."

"...Why?"

"He said something about 'seeing a house in the forest," but I didn't really understand..."

"Oh, the forest near the city?"

"I guess so, but a house?"

Shintaro spoke lightly. "If he says so, it, ah, must be true, right?"

"Well, if it's Seto..."

"Hn. I know where Kano is, but do you know where Momo went?"

"No clue."

Eventually, they fell silent, with nothing to do, but it was broken quickly afterwards.

The door opened. Seto walked in in a green t-shirt and jeans, and leaves were sticking up all over them.

"Ah, hello, Shintaro! Hi, Kido!"

Kido spoke first. "So did you find that house?"

Seto explained quickly. "Well, I did, but there was no one there. I went to open the door, but it was locked..."

Shintaro narrowed his eyes and spoke next.\

"Wait... So because no one was in the house, you decided to open the door?"

"...Maybe that wasn't such a good idea."

He sweatdropped.

Seto spoke again.

"Oh, but summer's ending soon, isn't it? Do you have to go to school?"

"Do I have to go to school?" Shintaro looked up and repeated the question.

He turned his head back down.

"I think you mean, "Do 'We' have to go to school."

Groans resounded around the room.

Shintaro looked at a wall and said, "Ah, if you really need help, I'll help you, I guess."

"A-ah, really?"

"Yep... Just ask, I guess."

* * *

**[Some time later]**

"Well, My name is Kisaragi Shintaro..."

The boy quickly realized he had no idea what to say.

Having no human contact with strangers since he first met his adoptive siblings had that sort of effect.

"..."

Silence.

"..."

"...Nice to meet you?"

He went with his best "confident" smile (which wasn't really good, honestly) before returning to his normal deadpan expression.

The deadpan expression never felt more fitting.

It was a bland classroom, with a bland green chalkboard with bland white chalk dust and the rather boring and bland names of his classmates, most old, some new- though he hadn't bothered to remember a single one- and bland desks with bland and immature scribbles all over them-

-You get the point.

Ah, the woes of a 5th grader...

The teacher pointed him to a desk, and he sat down.

Some of his classmates (old and new) gave him odd looks after his smile. Mostly girls, but Shintaro could hardly bring himself to care.

Was his smile really that odd?

...Oh right, none of his classmates had seen him smile.

_like, ever._

A boring day, with boring classes and a boring orientation...

It was a long way till the last bell.

* * *

**[With Momo and Company-]**

"Aww, my schedule is different than all of yours..."

Momo's schedule contained-

-1st: Arithmetic

-2nd: Language

-3rd: Phys Ed

-4th: Social Studies

-5th: Science

"Well, I don't even understand how there can be four classes and you missed us on every single one... Oh well, seems like you'll be a lonely old hag for the rest of the year..."

Kano got punched in the face.

"Ow ow ow! Why can't you have mercy?"

Kano's schedule looked a little like this.

-1st: Language

-2nd: Social Studies

-3rd: Arithmetic

-4th: Science

-5th: Phys Ed

"Maybe you should be glad, though. You don't have to deal with Kano at all."

Kido walked towards them, though she might have been there for a while and had just been trying to draw attention to herself so people would actually hear her.

Her schedule looked like this.

-1st: Language

-2nd: Science

-3rd: Social Studies

-4th: Arithmetic

-5th: Phys Ed

"What's that supposed to mean? I'm not that bad, ri-"

"Well, you're pretty bad. Gotta admit." At Seto's words, Momo and Kido shared a sagely nod.

His schedule was something of this.

-1st: Social Studies

-2nd: Science

-3rd: Arithmetic

-4th: Language

-5th:- Phys Ed

Kano rebutted quickly.

"I bet you're just saying that because you never win when we fight." He crossed his arms quickly.

"That's not true!" Seto looked extremely offended. "You just do that cover-up thingie and it looks like you win!"

"Hey, speaking of which, how do you do that cover up thing?" Momo asked curiously.

"Hmm... I'm not sure, actually. I think I've always been able to do it... Like part of my constitution or something?"

"Your constitution?"

"Like how it'll always be in Kido's nature to pop out at us out of nowhere or something like that... Right?"

"Um, I guess so..."

* * *

It was that time of day again for Shintaro.

Lunch time.

The school called it that, but it was really "socializing time".

And the Kisaragi had to get away from that, he swore on his life.

It would be a cold day in Mordor before he took the initiative in a conversation with strangers.

Or if he took anything in a conversation with strangers.

And so there he was, in the courtyard, with a convenience store bento.

The courtyard had managed to be slightly less bland than the classrooms. Dirt lay bare on the ground- though Shintaro knew that by spring green grass would have sprung- and trees with leaves that started to fall sprung about around the area. Benches stayed in the shade of the trees, though that wouldn't matter in the winter.

Somehow, by some manner of coincidence, he managed to find Kido.

Too bad he never believed in coincidence.

"...Have you been waiting for me here?"

Kido seemed to almost jump out of her skin when she heard him. When Shintaro saw her face, she looked like a deer caught in the headlights.

Shintaro sat down next to her, and she spoke.

"W-well... I didn't expect anyone here and... I couldn't figure out how to do this." Almost shamelessly, Kido produced a sheet of paper from her bag.

"Oh. That."

Shintaro looked at her in deadpan.

He looked down.

He took off the lid on his convenience store bento and looked at her again.

"Figure it out yourself."

"Oh? You can't do it?" Taking a gamble, she challenged him, knowing that he probably-no definitely could do it.

"I know what you're trying to do, and it isn't going to work. However, to get the answer, you just have to take the 6 and subtract 2 from it in the parenthesis. Then, divide it by 2 and add 3, so you'd have 5." Scribbling down his words on the paper in one hand, he fumbled with his utensils in his left, though he still managed to eat.

"...You said that it wouldn't work and you did it anyways." Kido stared incredulously.

Shintaro flushed (**A/N:** **Kyaa Kyaa!**) and looked away. "Sh-shut it. 'M only doing this once." He put all his focus into eating.

The sat in silence until the bell rung.

* * *

**[How to Phys-Ed with Shintaro]**

Shintaro sighed. The heat was battering down on everyone and the teacher was busy organizing the -rest- of the year, so they students were on their own.

And someone had to elect to play soccer.

So Shintaro was simply sitting on the bleachers as the others ran around like fools.

It wasn't as if he couldn't play soccer. However, he had incredibly low tolerance for such things and with the heat, he might simply snap on the spot.

He couldn't think very well either.

"Kisaragi-san! Want to join us for soccer?" A muddled voice came out.

"Huh? Oh, sure."

_Wait... What?!_

The rest of the period was blurred in his memory, but his heat-addled brain could remember that he had somehow managed MVP and scored... 6 goals? He wasn't sure of that either.

"Oh, good job, Kisaragi-san! That was fun!"

More voices.

Well, to him, it was automatically registered as "Generic character 2" (as Generic character one was already taken) _annyoned_ as mentioned before, he couldn't be bothered to remember anyone's name._  
_

"...Thanks."

Shintaro sighed.

Though he was surrounded by eccentric and erratic people most of the time, the problem still plagued him.

Everything went exactly how he expected it to.

A curse that followed him around, no matter where he went.

_Life is really, horrifically boring, isn't it?_

* * *

**This will jump into a part that is based on "Toumei Answer."**

**Anyways, there's going to be a time-skip 3 years into the future next chapter, so just warning you in advance.**

**Also, the anime airs on the same day as my birthday- April 12th**

**(I shouldn't share my birthday but I feel like bragging about it)**

**Too bad I also have an ACT test on that day...**

**A/N: Yeah, I lied. I'm gonna do Yobanashi Deceive next, and there won't be a time skip.**

**Yet. This is my last delay, since I did foreshadowing for Yobanashi Deceive anyways...**


End file.
